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Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Living My Life Like a ~Randomly Connected~ Song*

I am interrupting this blog post with an important update!! I am a guest blogger!! Please check out the link and while you are there, check out Vikki's stories of married life and just living! : Laugh Lines!

Now, back to my blog! So, I briefly held a monkey hostage
this weekend.

Just to clarify:

No monkeys were harmed in this
brief hostage-taking.

There was only one monkey.

There was wine involved. And
Parrotheads.

This is the monkey of question:

If you woof someone, set them free...

He is of Chinese pedigree, according to
his tag – and the rather poorly translated 'wuv' which reads
'woof'. Unless Chinese monkeys actually do 'woof', which his owner
adamantly believes to be true.

We were there with two old friends to
listen to some music, have a glass of wine on an otherwise dreary
Saturday and celebrate our anniversary. You know, keep it quiet. Low key. But instead of a peaceful winery with people sipping pinot while sampling cheeses we were greeted by a Cabin Fever Party – Hawaiian Leas, a
light up flamingo, a trop-rock band and a winery full of Parrotheads. As feral Parrotheads, Bart and I felt right at home.

There was also raffle tickets, tiny drink umbrellas and wine.

Through some rather...friendly
extortion...I managed to get the crowd's support in acquiring Woofy.

(It should be noted that I never
intended to keep Woofy.)

Bart, fearing for the monkey's safety, did
some UN level negotiating and for the price of one dance, Amber was
reunited with her pet. And Bart and I were invited to join the
Parrotheads of the River Bend. (As it turns out, Amber is the group's charity director.)

and if they woof you they will come back...or if you get the band to do a shout out...either way...

I guess my point here is this: keep
your eyes and your mind open and be ready to always have fun. You just never know when you will meet
a new friend, learn a new song, taste a new food. We left the house
on Saturday expecting to hear some tunes and talk with some old
friends. I never intended to kidnap a monkey. Amber never intended to
wind up on this blog. Bart...well, he never knows what's going to
happen.

We left the winery and drove literally
straight up the bluff and spent the rest of our evening enjoying the
lovely fireplace in our rented condo.

Fine. It was electric. But it was still pretty.

(A little background – Parrotheads
are people who embrace the music of Jimmy Buffett. As a sanctioned
Parrothead club, the mission is to Party with a Purpose. The clubs
gather, or Phlock, for fun and to support a variety of causes. On
this particular day, Parrotheads of the River Bend raised money for a
local no-kill animal shelter; click on their name if you would like a full list of their charities, activities and their manatee. Yes. Manatee. And after such a warm welcome by the
group, Bart and I are reconsidering our Feral Parrothead status.)

I would love to have included some
photos of Grafton, the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois
Rivers, that horrifying road up to Aerie's Lodge and some of the
winter nesting bald eagles. I should also mention the delicious breakfast we ate at Ruebel Hotel - present in Grafton since 1904! However, it was cloudy on Saturday so I
held off on picture taking until Sunday. Visibility was about three
feet on Sunday, the whole region fogged in after a cold front just
missed dumping ice and snow on us. Seize the day. Lesson learned, God.

This turned out to be a blessing as it
allowed us to drive back down the horrifying bluff road and make it
home in time for me to sign up for the Color Run 5K.

Blah Blah...

I'm a landlocked beach bum here on the Coast of Illinois. No...not that Coast, you know, the one with broad shoulders. The other Coast. The one with tug boats and Arches and a bunch of ancient dead guys buried in Mounds.
I am an inadvertent sailor-thanks to my husband and our 15 foot handmade wooden sloop...for which I made the sails!
I am here to promote the beach bum lifestyle, even when surrounded by corn and clay and I hope to point out the everyday weirdness that is easy to miss because once you start seeing hairnets, you will never stop seeing hairnets.

I have a palm tree necklace. It set us back a whole ten dollars, purchased on the boardwalk in Destin, Florida during the first trip ...

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Hey Europe!

Just got a notice, due to the high number of hits in Europe (!!!) that I am required to inform you that there may be cookies attached to this blog. I am told these are tracking cookies. I know. I was disappointed too. I was hoping for a nice gooey chocolate chip or Mexican chocolate. But, NO. There are no chocolate chip cookies. Just computer type cookies. I am not sure what else to do about this. If you are in Europe and reading my blog, first of all, THANKS! Secondly, if you are one of the half dozen Russian type porn sites, STOP IT. And thirdly, if you are one of my five relatives living in Europe, MISS YOU ALL AND LOVE YOU! If there is a problem please contact me Europe. I am a very delightful person and hope to visit you again one day.